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Visual C# 2015 RC compiler could not be created.

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Thursday, May 28, 2015 7:30 AM | 3 votes

I have installed Visual Studio 2015 RC (Community Edition) and installation was perfectly fine. But when I try to create a new project, I get following error,

Project 'WpfApplication2' could not be opened because the Visual C# 2015 RC compiler could not be created. Please re-install Visual Studio.

The same issue occur with other types of projects (e.g. Console Application, Windows Forms etc.).

I "Repaired" the Visual Studio setup and after all the process or reinstall the error is same and I can't get it to work. After searching forums I found that users experienced same issue with older versions of Visual Studio so I tried those fixes but nothing helps. I tried following fixes,

1) Delete Following Registry Key as suggested in some forums,

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0

2) Launch Visual Studio using command devenv /resetsettings

3) Launch Visual Studio using command devenv /resetskippkgs

Please note that I have Visual Studio 2013 Professional installed on same machine. I am not sure if these two have some conflict or its something else. Any advice / help would be highly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

All replies (9)

Friday, May 29, 2015 7:05 AM ✅Answered | 1 vote

Hi JiayiLi,

Thanks a lot for the comprehensive post which summarise lot of workarounds.

I wasn't able to check my downloaded file hash because I used web installer to download and install the VS2015 RC. It automatically Acquire and Apply the packages and maybe it messed up something. However I didn't get any error during installation and also when I repaired installation using same process.

I tired the registry fixes but that made no difference. So I though maybe its something wrong with downloaded package (because my internet was disconnected twice during the process of Acquiring).

So I uninstalled the Visual Studio and then manually removed all related registry keys and files from AppData. Then I downloaded the ISO file and verified the Hash. Now I just installed it using that ISO and it seem to work fine now :)

Thanks a lot.

Best Regards,

 

Friday, May 29, 2015 6:14 AM | 2 votes

Hi MuhammadTayyab,

Firstly, could you check whether the package is a good package or not? Please use the FCIV.exe to verify the checksum of Visual Studio 2015 Community RC. The SHA-1 value of Visual Studio 2015 RC (Community) is “BF92E1718234568BEB72D00FFEDD5E259E5CB3BE”, refer to: https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/downloads/visual-studio-2015-iso-sha1-vs
The download and usage of FCIV is: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/841290
If the SHA-1 value of your visual studio doesn’t equal “BF92E1718234568BEB72D00FFEDD5E259E5CB3BE”, it means that your package is corrupted, please re-download and reinstall it.

Secondly, if the package is good, and as you mentioned, the three methods don’t work, maybe you can try the following methods:

  1. changing HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0 to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\ABC14.0
    refer to: https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/04be49aa-de6b-4f45-9a27-86e3f214a0fe/project-could-not-be-opened-because-microsoft-visual-c-2008-compiler-could-not-be-created-?forum=Vsexpressinstall The user Vegemite posted it. Because it will be recreated, something maybe wrong under your registry.
  2. Try the following switches:
    Try running devenv /Safemode in Command Prompt to see if you can apply it correctly.
    Try running devenv /Resetuserdata in Command Prompt to reset all of your VS environment and customization settings.
  3. Use gacutil /u, as the answer in the following thread: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11988077/plain-c-sharp-editor-in-visual-studio-2012-no-intellisense-no-indentation-no

If all the above don’t work, please use Collect.exe to collect the log files, you can get the log files with the following steps:

  1. Download collect.exe from the link below. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/heaths/archive/2008/05/09/visual-studio-and-net-log-collection-utility.aspx
  2. You may choose to save the tool for later use, or to run directly.
  3. The utility creates a compressed cabinet of all the VS and .NET logs to %TEMP%\vslogs.cab.

Hope this information is helpful.

Best Regards,
JiayiLi

Friday, May 29, 2015 7:17 AM

Hi MuhammadTayyab,

I’m very glad to know that your visual studio works now.

Best Regards,

JiayiLi

Wednesday, February 3, 2016 1:37 AM | 6 votes

Don't try to fix it (you make things worse, you will come to Windows re-install that only to help you ((: ):

  1. Don't delete all files in any 2015 visual studio directories.
  2. Don't clean up 2015 visual studio windows registry.

 

Defect description:

Visual studio installer, decided without any warning notice, not to install some packages.

Just for example "Visual c# 2015 Compiler could not be created"

Visual Installer just simply doesn't install into "c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies\ the package "vs_RoslynLanguageServices". The reason for example it was installed somewhere, just in another place by product "X".

So by "devenv.config.exe" VS2015 will expect it to load from "PrivateAssemblies", but it was not setup there in first place. Just the similar picture for other packages, that unlikely in not part of GAC.

 

So remedy is simple:

1.From Visual studio logs detects what was skipped. Search all VS installation logs in "temp" by key phrase

"has been added to the No operation list"

 

2. Copy paste the list of skipped packages include GUID.

 

3.Manualy uninstall them from win registry: Windows\Installer\..Products\ (there is also msi.exe  install cmd lines, or just delete registry records if you know how)

 

4.Run repair VS them again. If still there are missing in packages  Check 1 and repeat 2-4.

 

I think IDE Team should create installation validator, that helps to check these simple things.

Just silly simple defect.

Thursday, February 18, 2016 5:38 PM

Don't try to fix it (you make things worse, you will come to Windows re-install that only to help you ((: ):

  1. Don't delete all files in any 2015 visual studio directories.
  2. Don't clean up 2015 visual studio windows registry.

 

Defect description:

Visual studio installer, decided without any warning notice, not to install some packages.

Just for example "Visual c# 2015 Compiler could not be created"

Visual Installer just simply doesn't install into "c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies\ the package "vs_RoslynLanguageServices". The reason for example it was installed somewhere, just in another place by product "X".

So by "devenv.config.exe" VS2015 will expect it to load from "PrivateAssemblies", but it was not setup there in first place. Just the similar picture for other packages, that unlikely in not part of GAC.

 

So remedy is simple:

1.From Visual studio logs detects what was skipped. Search all VS installation logs in "temp" by key phrase

"has been added to the No operation list"

 

2. Copy paste the list of skipped packages include GUID.

 

3.Manualy uninstall them from win registry: Windows\Installer\..Products\ (there is also msi.exe  install cmd lines, or just delete registry records if you know how)

 

4.Run repair VS them again. If still there are missing in packages  Check 1 and repeat 2-4.

 

I think IDE Team should create installation validator, that helps to check these simple things.

Just silly simple defect.

Thanks a lot for this hint!

I think this just saved from a newinstalltion of Windows. Neither a reapir nor a reinstall of VS solved this issue for me. Also the other solutions didnot work for me. So I looked for the GUIDs in the logfiles, uninstalled them with msiexec and then repaired VS. Now it is working :)

Why doesnot Microsoft include this kind of check in their installation procedure?

Thursday, April 7, 2016 7:59 PM | 2 votes

Don't try to fix it (you make things worse, you will come to Windows re-install that only to help you ((: ):

  1. Don't delete all files in any 2015 visual studio directories.
  2. Don't clean up 2015 visual studio windows registry.

 

Defect description:

Visual studio installer, decided without any warning notice, not to install some packages.

Just for example "Visual c# 2015 Compiler could not be created"

Visual Installer just simply doesn't install into "c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies\ the package "vs_RoslynLanguageServices". The reason for example it was installed somewhere, just in another place by product "X".

So by "devenv.config.exe" VS2015 will expect it to load from "PrivateAssemblies", but it was not setup there in first place. Just the similar picture for other packages, that unlikely in not part of GAC.

 

So remedy is simple:

1.From Visual studio logs detects what was skipped. Search all VS installation logs in "temp" by key phrase

"has been added to the No operation list"

 

2. Copy paste the list of skipped packages include GUID.

 

3.Manualy uninstall them from win registry: Windows\Installer\..Products\ (there is also msi.exe  install cmd lines, or just delete registry records if you know how)

 

4.Run repair VS them again. If still there are missing in packages  Check 1 and repeat 2-4.

 

I think IDE Team should create installation validator, that helps to check these simple things.

Just silly simple defect.

Thanks a lot for this hint!

I think this just saved from a newinstalltion of Windows. Neither a reapir nor a reinstall of VS solved this issue for me. Also the other solutions didnot work for me. So I looked for the GUIDs in the logfiles, uninstalled them with msiexec and then repaired VS. Now it is working :)

Why doesnot Microsoft include this kind of check in their installation procedure?

Very good question.  This is the worst visual studio installer I have ever used.   The worst thing about it is that I cant stop it from installing update 2.  Visual Studio 2015 is now unusable for me. I have tried just about everything to fix it. Thanks a lot for the update Microsoft.  Did you actually test Update 2?   The Visual Studio 2015 Update 2 installer fails consistently.  How could you not have missed this?

Microsoft Visual Studio

Project could not be opened because the Visual C# 2015 compiler could not be created. Please re-install Visual Studio.

OK   

"Manualy uninstall them from win registry: Windows\Installer\..Products\ (there is also msi.exe  install cmd lines, or just delete registry records if you know how)"

Nice Microsoft :)

Thursday, April 7, 2016 8:04 PM

The install log file is so big I cant even paste it here.

Visual Studio 2015 Update 2 was not ready for release.  I am recommending that my team not use Visual Studio 2015 at all.  I am going back to Visual Studio 2013 Update 5.   

Wednesday, April 27, 2016 12:22 PM | 1 vote

I too have instructed my team not bother with Visual Studio 2015 RTM until the numerous installation problems are fixed.  After many many hours of trying I was able to complete the install, but when I tried to create a simple console application the c# compiler could-not-be-created error is thrown.  

Previous versions of Visual Studio from 2008 to 2013 have been virtually problem-free.  How the Microsoft VS team could have released such a thing to their customers is a mystery.  

Monday, June 6, 2016 12:23 PM

Hi JiayiLi,

Thanks a lot for the comprehensive post which summarise lot of workarounds.

...

So I uninstalled the Visual Studio and then manually removed all related registry keys and files from AppData. Then I downloaded the ISO file and verified the Hash. Now I just installed it using that ISO and it seem to work fine now :)

Thanks a lot.

Best Regards,

 

This worked for me as well, unfortunately not using VS2015 was not an option for me so after three days of jumping from one rabbit hole into another (each time leaving my development environment in a worst state then the one before) this was my last ditch effort before turning my box into IT to have a new OS installed so I could start from scratch (setting me back another few days).  

I was "VERY" surprised that something as simple as installing the ISO file would work -  this suggests to me that someone at Microsoft made a mistake and the VS folks are not owning up to it causing developers a lot of lost work and time; obviously the web install has issues....   My suspicion it has something to do with Windows 7 as I had no issues on my Windows 10 (personal) development box and I noted that the nu-get package installer for Windows 7 downloads a zero byte file (aborting installation) where it works for Windows 10.

Note: I did have to run a repair after an install but now everything appears to be working again.

[UPDATE] - The compiler could not be created error is resolved but I have an issue where the NuGet package manager is not installed/working.  All efforts to this point have failed - uninstalling Update 2 and hoping that Update 1 will install so that I can get back to work - it has been four days now...